engleski

Psychological and physiological correlates of pathogen-induced disgust

Behavioural immune system (BIS) refers to a wide array of affective and cognitive processes that aim to motivate behaviour towards pathogen and disease avoidance. BIS is closely related to disgust – emotion that evolved with a prime purpose of avoiding disease. Even though general research in this area is steadily growing, there is only a small number of studies dealing with physiological aspects of BIS. The goal of this study was to assess the activation of autonomous nervous system (ANS) while being exposed to pathogen-salient stimuli. Subjects (N=29) were shown pictures that had different levels of pathogen salience and were asked to rate the (un)pleasantness of those pictures, while their electrodermal activity (EDA) was being recorded (using Biopac MP160 system). Participants reacted to the pictures with pathogens significantly faster than to the comparable set of pictures without pathogens. There were no significant main effects of pathogen salience on participants’ EDA, but there was a significant interaction effect of sex and pathogen salience. Perception of own vulnerability to disease and squeamishness, two widely used measures in this area of research, did not correlate with either of the objective measures (EDR and RT). These findings provide only partial support for the notion that BIS activation is accompanied by significant ANS activation. Furthermore, they underscore the importance of adding physiological measures to the subjective ones in order to further explore the mechanisms underlying behavioural immune system functioning.

Behavioural immune system, disgust, disease avoidance, electrodermal activity

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